Today's electronic devices evolve rapidly, especially portable electronic devices. One of the trends lately is that they are capable of providing or supporting a variety of multimedia or entertainment services, such as play out of audio and/or video. Some examples of such devices are mobile telephones, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), mp3-players, laptops and so on.
Very often, the user of an electronic device and hence a service provided by it, starts utilising the service, e.g. listening to audio from a radio broadcast or an mp3 file using a headset connected to the electronic device, and then puts the device away in a pocket or bag. If the user is interrupted, he/she must then take out the device from the pocket or bag and manipulate it in order to stop the play out and remove the headset before being able to engage in another activity called for by the interruption. Assume the play out is an audio book, the user most probably does not want during further play out to just remove the headset not hearing what is being read and thus “losing” information before stopping the play out.
Once the user wants to resume his/her use of the service, he/she must then manipulate the electronic device in order to start the play out again. In case the user has lost some information that is “recoverable”, e.g. by rewinding the audio file, the user may have to find the point in time in the play out sequence where he/she was interrupted. In case the user was listening to, e.g. a real time radio broadcast or podcast, the information is permanently lost.
There is a problem with existing electronic devices concerning the ease of use of the device. The manipulation of the device in order to control it and the services provided by it may be cumbersome and constitute a source of irritation for the user.
There is another problem, caused by the cumbersome use of the device, that information may be lost for the user of the device.